The present invention relates to a loading system for containers holding cartridged ammunition in an armored vehicle carrying a top gun mounted tubular weapon which is pivotable about a generally horizontal axis, the system including a first transporting device for transporting a container from a magazine holding a plurality of containers and disposed in a rear section of the vehicle into a loading position behind the weapon.
In armored vehicles, such systems serve to automatically supply ammunition to the weapon in place of manual loading operations by crew members. The use of machine aids to automate the loading process, eliminates the need for a crew member to leave the protective enclosure of the vehicle, on the one hand, and increases the speed of the loading cycle, on the other hand. The use of containers, each holding a plurality of cartridges, permits repeated firing without reloading.
DE-OS [Federal Republic of Germany Laid-Open Application] No. 3,022,410 and counterpart U.S. Pat. No. 4,466,333 disclose such a loading system in which the containers on the exterior of the weapon carrier, which is not protected by the armored cover, are reloaded by machine from the interior of the vehicle.
In the tail section of the armored vehicle disclosed in those references, there is disposed a container reloading station from which a full container can be supplied to the weapon over a container displacement path. When the empty container is removed or a new full container is supplied, the weapon is in an indexed position.
A drawback of this known loading system is the fact that the weapon must be in an indexed position for the loading and unloading process. This is applicable, in particular, if, as proposed in those references, the indexed position is defined by the highest possible gun barrel elevation. In addition to the loading or reloading time delay incurred by the setting to such an indexed position, the high elevation at which the gun barrel must placed, as customary, for example, for armored artillery vehicles, enlarges the silhouette of the vehicle in a dangerous manner.
A further loss of time during loading occurs in the loading system according to the above-cited references since an empty container must be brought into the container replenishing station over the displacement path before a new full container can be supplied to the weapon over the same displacement path. During the entire period of this process, the tubular weapon is in the indexed position.